Mother’s Day 2019

Since I won’t be around this year on the blog for Mother’s Day, I wanted to share a few thoughts.

This will be my second Mother’s day with my son. Though, to be fair, last year was a blur because I was still hopped up on pain pills recovering from delivery. This past year has been a wonderful whirlwind, but I can’t help thinking how past years have been for me. Years of waiting and wondering. Years of loss and grief. Years watching others experience the kind of motherhood I desperately wanted.

Before my son was born, I felt like an outsider. And after he was born, honestly, life felt normal again. On the outside, I look like a typical suburban stay at home mom going to the grocery or the library with my adorable son in tow. The pain and grief is still there, but life is much easier to navigate day to day. And sometimes I feel guilty that it got easier. And sometimes it’s hard to enjoy because I keep waiting for the next crisis, the other shoe to drop.

So, this year, I’m giving myself permission to completely enjoy Mother’s Day. To embrace the gratitude and to celebrate the other moms and maternal figures around me. And giving permission is sometimes just what we need.

So, you have permission to love or hate Mother’s day. You have permission to cocoon yourself in on that day or seek community if you want. You have permission to remember babies you have lost or babies you long to have. You have permission to celebrate the children in your life whose lives you have nurtured and loved. You have permission to hide from the kids to read a book or spend the entire day playing with them. You have permission to celebrate the joy of the last year or just the fact that you survived. You have permission to not have kids or desire kids at all and see this day as a day to celebrate other women in your life. You even have permission to celebrate this day with your pets, because fur-babies need love and nurturing, too.

Any way you celebrate the second Sunday in May is appropriate. Even if it is just the second Sunday in May and nothing else. But no matter how you celebrate or don’t, just know you are worthy and valuable for who you are right now, and that truth doesn’t change, no matter what.

Finally, I want to share a few other Mother’s Day reminder posts that I have written over the years. The links are below.